at for such great causes as have been already
mentioned: but as soon as he began to be ill, he came to him, and
this without being sent for; and when he was dead, he took care of his
funeral, and had his body brought to Jerusalem, and buried there, and
appointed a solemn mourning for him. This [death of Pheroras] became the
origin of Antipater's misfortunes, although he were already sailed for
Rome, God now being about to punish him for the murder of his brethren,
I will explain the history of this matter very distinctly, that it may
be for a warning to mankind, that they take care of conducting their
whole lives by the rules of virtue.

CHAPTER 4. Pheroras's Wife Is Accused By His Freedmen, As Guilty Of
Poisoning Him; And How Herod, Upon Examining; Of The Matter By Torture
Found The Poison; But So That It Had Been Prepared For Himself By
His Son Antipater; And Upon An Inquiry By Torture He Discovered The
Dangerous Designs Of Antipater.

1. As soon as Pheroras was dead, and his funeral was over, two of
Pheroras's freed-men, who were much esteemed by him, came to Herod, and
entreated him not to leave the murder of his brother without avenging
it, but to examine into such an unreasonable and unhappy death. When he
was moved with these words, for they seemed to him to be true, they said
that Pheroras supped with his wife the day before he fell sick, and that
a certain potion was brought him in such a sort of food as he was not
used to eat; but that when he had eaten, he died of it: that this
potion was brought out of Arabia by a woman, under pretense indeed as a
love-potion, for that was its name, but in reality to kill Pheroras;
for that the Arabian women are skillful in making such poisons: and the
woman to whom they ascribe this was confessedly a most intimate friend
of one of Sylleus's mistresses; and that both the mother and the sister
of Pheroras's wife had been at the places where she lived, and had
persuaded her to sell them this potion, and had come back and brought
it with them the day before that his supper. Hereupon the king was
provoked, and put the women slaves to the torture, and some that were
free with them; and as the fact did not yet appear, because none of them
would confess it, at length one of them, under the utmost agonies, said
no more but this, that she prayed that God would send the like agonies
upon Antipater's mother, who had been the occasion of these miseries to
all of them. This pray